The Bihar government on Friday suspended 15 engineers for alleged negligence in the wake of 10 bridges collapsing over a period of two weeks in the state, The Indian Express reported.
Eleven officials, including executive engineers, assistant engineers and junior engineers, were suspended from the water resources department, the newspaper reported, quoting unidentified government officials. Four engineers from the rural works department were also suspended.
Chaitanya Prasad, additional chief secretary of the water resources department, said that the engineers did not take proper care of the structures, India Today reported. “Contractors were not diligent either,” he added.
Apart from issuing suspension orders, the state government also initiated the process to blacklist the errant contractors and construction companies, The Indian Express reported. It issued show cause notices to two construction companies.
On Thursday, a bridge in the Saran district collapsed, making it the tenth such incident to have been reported in the state in 15 days. Two other bridges collapsed 24 hours earlier in Saran. While one of them was in Janta Bazar, another was in Lahladpur.
A portion of another bridge over the Gandaki river in the Siwan district had also collapsed on Wednesday morning. On June 22, a portion of another bridge collapsed in the Darounda area of Siwan district.
Incidents of bridge collapse have been reported in other districts, including Madhubani, Araria, East Champaran and Kishanganj recently, which prompted the state government to set up a high-level committee to investigate these incidents.
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